Take My Hand

by P Nelson

  “Lilith, what’s wrong?” Eric’s concerned question came from far away. Lilith’s attention was riveted to the text message from Kevin’s mother. Ruth said she had missed her, and even though, at the time, Lilith had not wanted to keep anything from the house, she had saved some pictures and other mementos that she might like to have now that she had grieved properly. Eric waved a hand in front of Lilith’s face, but she ignored him. She wanted to retreat and suddenly felt ill. Her whole body began to shake as she continued to stare at the message.

  In the distance, Lilith heard Eric swear and take the phone from her. He swore again as his hand gripped her upper arm and pulled her out of her seat. Lilith knew her co-workers were staring at her as Eric calmly pulled her into his office. They must be making a scene, but Lilith couldn’t quite summon enough embarrassment to care. Instead, she followed Eric to his office and sat down in the chair that he pulled away from the front of his desk for her.

  “Lilith, sweetheart, are you with me?” Eric’s voice had gone soft, and she looked into his concern-filled eyes. Lilith wanted to nod, to speak. To tell him everything was fine, that she just needed a minute to gather her thoughts, but she only blinked at him. Eric sighed and reached for the phone on his desk punching angrily at the screen.

  “Harlow, its Danvers.” Lilith listened to the one-sided conversation in confusion. “It’s Lilith, she’s had a shock and I think she might be in subdrop. If you can’t take care of your sub, then I will be happy to do it for you.” Lilith could hear someone yelling on the other end of the phone and was curious as to who would dare yell at Eric. He was an influential member of Vancouver society and held a lot of sway in certain circles. “Fine, get your ass over here then.” Eric finished with his phone and set it on his desk. With surprising grace for such a big man, he walked to the windows and pulled the blinds down. Eric clicked the lock in the door and went to stand in front of Lilith.

  “Come on, your master can hardly fault me for giving comfort to a sub. It is after all my duty as a Dom,” Eric said as he scooped Lilith up into his arms and settled back into the chair she had just occupied. Lilith felt awkward in his arms and couldn’t relax against him.

  “You know about Master Gaige and me?” Lilith spoke the first thing to come into her head. How would Eric know about Gaige unless he knew about the club too?

  “The kink world is a small place, Lilith,” Eric said as he smoothed a hand down her back in a gesture meant to be comforting. Lilith thought it would be, if Gaige were doing it, but when Eric held her, it just felt all wrong. “The Cage is even smaller. As soon as you mentioned last Friday that Calla had set you up on a blind date, I had my suspicions.”

  “Do you play at The Cage?” Lilith was curious, her initial shock at hearing from Kevin’s mother was fading a bit, and now she felt like an idiot. She tried to think of all the people who had been at the dungeon last night, but she would have remembered seeing Eric there. Maybe he had seen her getting a spanking. Lilith’s face turned bright red, and she jumped off his lap.

  “Yes, I have Master’s rights at The Cage.” Eric chuckled and she watched him adjust the front of his pants. It was obvious their embrace had meant more to him than her. “But I mostly play on the weekends these days because I don’t have a permanent sub.”

  “Oh,” was all Lilith could think to say to that comment. “I think I’m fine now. I should go back to work.”

  “Lilith, so you want to talk about the text you just received, you went into shock. You might feel better if you unburden yourself.” Eric’s tone was reasonable, but she recognised the thread of authority in his manner. Now that she had spent time with Master Gaige, she recognised the intent behind the words. “Are you using your Dom voice on me?”

  Eric stared at her for a moment and then threw his head back and laughed. Lilith just watched as the other man got control over himself. “I can see Master Gaige will have his work cut out for him with you.” As he finished the sentence, the doorknob turned viciously, followed by a pounding on the door when it wouldn’t open. “Danvers, you’d better let me inside.” The threat of tearing the whole office apart to get to her was very real in his tone.

  “Hang on, Harlow, this is an office.” Eric jumped out of his chair and went to the door. As soon as the lock clicked, Gaige’s large frame barrelled through the door, his gaze narrowed in on Lilith.

  “Baby girl, what did we talk about last night before I walked you and Calla to her car?” Gaige was picking her up before she knew it and placing her in his lap, just as Eric had. Except Lilith melted into Gaige, his heat was comforting, and she pressed her face into his shoulder, unmindful that Eric was standing there in his own office and that the floor was busy working away only feet from them.

  “You said if I felt like subdrop might be coming on, that I should call you immediately,” Lilith replied.

  Gaige held Lilith in his arms and cuddled her close. He had been frantic since receiving the call from Eric that she had bottomed out emotionally. He might be a caveman for thinking it, but all he wanted to do was lock her inside a tower and keep her safe from everything. Instead, he tried to tackle his raging emotions for this woman and calmly talk to her. “And is there a reason you didn’t call me?”

  “She was fine before she received a text from her dead husband’s mother.” Eric’s voice was soft, but the words still made Lilith tighten in his arms.

  “Fine.” Gaige’s voice rumbled out. “Give me a few minutes, and I will take her home.” He had already cleared his schedule for the rest of the afternoon with his secretary before leaving the office. Gaige was going to take care of her properly.

  “I can go back to work; really it’s fine,” Lilith said as she looked at her cell phone sitting on Eric’s desk as if she wanted to throw it away. She glanced up at Gaige and Eric’s face and braced herself. “It was nothing.” She made to get up.

  “It wasn’t nothing, and you’re going home where I can give you the aftercare you need.” Gaige knew his voice was hard, but sometimes that was the best way to deal with a difficult sub.

  “Fine, just let me grab my jacket and my purse.” Lilith wriggled to get out of his hold.

  Gaige thought it was best to start as they meant to go on at this point. “I will give you five minutes to get back to this office, you will get a smack on the ass for every minute you’re late.” Lilith’s face turned bright red as she looked at Eric, who only winked back at her. “I assure you Master Eric has administered much worse punishments than a spanking in his time. Get going; the clock is ticking.” Lilith wrenched open the door and swiftly walked out of the room.

  “What did the text say?” Gaige asked as he looked away from Lilith’s swaying ass to Eric. He knew the man from The Cage, but they hadn’t really spent any time together. Only the fact that he was a member of the exclusive club gave Gaige any confidence in his ability to read Lilith.

  “She was fine one moment, and then she received a text from her mother-in-law. It was like she was in shock, totally in another world. I could actually feel her pulling away from me.” Eric shook his head. “Has she talked to you about Kevin and everything that happened after he died?”

  “No, she hasn’t confided in me.” Gaige reached up and ploughed a hand through his hair making it stick out at odd angles. “I know she’s a widow, and she has a lot of angst around his death, but we haven’t worked together long enough for her to really open up.”

  “She’s utterly damaged, Gaige,” Eric said slowly as if deciding whether to continue. “The fact is she has worked here for almost a year. She basically quit her life to get away from everything that happened with her ex. When she quit her job, Calla came to me, and I hired Lilith as a favour. Best decision I ever made, she’s a hard worker and had our accounts looking great in no time.”

  “Why don’t you give me the rest of the story so I don’t have to sit here and play your guessing games,” Gaige growled, annoyed that he was getting information from Eric, when he rea
lly wanted it from his sub. He wanted to peel back her layers and get to the woman who was hiding underneath all the walls she had put up to protect herself. Once he was inside her head, it would be a natural step to own her body and soul.

  “She has never once gone out for office drinks, and she turns down all invitations to see people after work. As far as I can tell, your date and play at the club are the first times she has been out socially aside from Calla since her husband’s death.” Eric’s voice was grim. “She isn’t just any girl, she needs a soft hand.”

  “Are you instructing me on how to handle my sub?” Gaige didn’t hold back his incredulous voice. “You better back the fuck off.”

  “It’s not like you to become so territorial over a sub, Gaige.” Eric looked at him with speculation. “The fact is Lilith has been my employee for almost a year, I feel a responsibility for her.”

  “You’ve also been casually topping her.” Gaige swore. “You’re going to stop that shit right now. Do you have feelings for her?”

  Eric shook his head. “Don’t make threats you can’t pay through on. I’m pretty sure that would be in the Dom handbook if there were one; otherwise, the subs would be out of control. And whether I have feelings for her is irrelevant. Lilith has never responded to me the same way as she responds to you.” He appeared slightly perplexed by the development.

  Gaige wanted to make all kinds of threats against Eric, but in the end, he knew Eric was right. They were both Doms, and they both played at the same club. Gaige was as certain as he could be that Lilith was attracted to him, he just had to make sure she craved his touch as much as he wanted to give it to her.

  “Thank you for watching over her.” Gaige held out his hand, even though he still wanted to punch the other guy in the face.

  Eric shook his hand, but drew away almost immediately. “I want you to know that at the end of her training period, I am going to make sure she knows there are plenty of Doms out there that would love her submission.”

  “Including you?” Gaige asked, and all his caveman instincts fired up in an instant.

  “I’ll make sure my name is on the top of the list,” Eric warned.

  “And I’ll make sure she has a contract with me,” Gaige shot back as he stepped forward.

  This is how Lilith found them, toe to toe in Eric’s office, staring at one another like they wanted to throw down right there. “I have my jacket and my purse.”

  “Good you’re only two minutes late.” Gaige declared and Lilith looked down at her watch to check the time. “Don’t argue with me. Eric, I’m sure I’ll see you at the club.”

  “You can count on it,” Eric replied as Gaige herded Lilith out of her boss’s office and through the floor filled with cubicles.

  Gaige was thankful she didn’t say a word until they reached his truck parked in front of the building she worked in. He unlocked the door using the fob and opened the door.

  “I can take transit or a cab home,” Lilith spoke, and Gaige’s blood pressure started to boil over.

  “We’ve already gone through this.” He did his best to stay calm and focused. Gaige was starting to question his sanity. He never lost his temper with a sub, but Lilith was making him crazy. “You need proper aftercare, and I’m going to give it to you. This is my job as your Dom. You signed a contract with me, and I guarantee taking care of you while you’re in subdrop is a part of the damn thing. So, get your ass in that seat right now.”

  Lilith jumped to do his bidding as if he had given her a good thwack on the ass like she deserved and sat in his vehicle’s passenger seat. He walked around to the other side of the truck and jumped inside. Gaige made sure she was comfortable in the seat next to his before turning the engine on and pulling into traffic.

  “I haven’t told you where I live,” Lilith said in a confused voice as Gaige headed east out of the city and into the suburbs.

  “A good Dom knows where his sub lives, Lilith.” Gaige took a deep breath and navigated his way down the street. “We like to know that our subs are safe. Scratch that, we’re barbarian control freaks who want to make sure that if their sub needs them, they can be with them in a heartbeat.”

  “Oh, that sounds kind of nice and not at all stalkerish,” Lilith pronounced from her seat.

  “Baby girl, I told you that I take the lifestyle seriously,” Gaige grinned at her for a second before turning his attention back to driving. She was going to learn that he was the only Dom who could give her what she needed.

  Chapter 5

  “Lilith, I heard about what happened today at work.” Calla wrapped Lilith in a big hug as soon as she entered the women’s changing room at The Cage. She noticed there were more women getting dressed and gossiping before they went out onto the dungeon floor.

  “Did Master Gaige call you?” Lilith frowned wondering when he might have been able to do such a thing. As soon as they had reached her apartment, Lilith had been a bit embarrassed to let him into her sparsely furnished place. She hadn’t really cared what the place looked like since she had never had anyone over. Not even Calla. As Gaige stood in the living room with a couple of bags in his hand, she had wondered about what he thought.

  “No, Eric called me to tell me he was going to give me twenty smacks tonight for not providing you with proper aftercare.” Calla’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at Lilith. “I thought you were doing good, and you would call me if you were having a problem.”

  “You should have told me Eric was a Dom here.” Lilith was reminded of her boss’s attempts to calm her after Ruth’s text. She watched as Calla looked around the locker room to avoid her gaze.

  “I couldn’t,” Calla shrugged her shoulders and finally looked at her. “You read and signed the privacy contract for the club. Anonymity is sacrosanct in the lifestyle. I couldn’t tell you unless not telling you was putting you in danger, and it wasn’t.

  Lilith grabbed her friend and gave her a big hug. “I suppose I should be thankful for the privacy clause, the thought of everyone knowing what I’m getting up to tonight makes me even more nervous.”

  Calla stepped out of Lilith’s way, and they walked over to their lockers. “I’m surprised Master Gaige brought you out to play tonight after what happened.” Lilith knew that Calla was prodding for details of what had caused her reaction this afternoon, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  “In truth, I don’t think it was subdrop.” Lilith told herself this all day. “It was just a shocking bit of news, and I handled it poorly. Master Gaige drove me home, put me in a bubble bath and fed me chocolates.” Afterwards, he bundled her up into a nice fuzzy robe, and they watched daytime TV together. It was cosy. “He didn’t want to bring me, but I think I need it.”

  “As long as you know it’s not a race.” Calla turned to her own locker. “I remember what it was like to be so excited to see my training Dom, I could hardly listen to patients at work.

  Lilith stiffened as a thought came into her head she hadn’t considered before. “Was Master Gaige your training Dom?”

  “No.” Calla shook her head and laughed. “God, no, we would never be compatible.” She sobered and looked inside her locker. “Master Flynn was my training Dom.”

  “I’ve heard his name around,” Lilith said as she self-consciously undressed to get into the fetware Gaige had brought over with him this afternoon. He had told her it was just in case they decided to head to the club tonight.

  “Master Flynn owns The Cage.” Calla was not embarrassed about her body at all as she squirmed into her black corset. “He’s a really powerful businessman from a bunch of old money in the mundane world. But here he’s Master Flynn,” she said simply and by the sadness in her tone, Lilith knew there was more to the story.

  “You’re in love with him?” Lilith asked as she pulled her own green corset into place and turned around at Calla’s hand command. She immediately started to tighten the laces and Lilith took her last full breath. This whole year she had only thought o
f herself and what she had been through. Had Calla fallen in love and had her heart broken while she had wallowed in self-pity? It made Lilith’s heart ache to know her friend had stood by her the whole year and never once complained or talked about her own problems. Lilith blinked away tears for the second time in two days as she thought of how selfish she had been.

  “It’s not love.” Calla’s voice was matter-of-fact behind Lilith, but she wished she could see her face. “Sometimes the first experience of submission can bring up a lot of feelings for the sub. I’m thankful for Master Flynn for giving me his time.”

  “Did you want to sign a permanent contract with him?” Lilith asked using the lifestyles reference for committing long-term.

  Calla sighed and forcibly turned Lilith around so that she could do up the laces on her corset. Lilith started from the bottom tightening up the ribbons. “We didn’t even get through the first thirty days. After two weeks, he handed me off to another Dom,” Calla’s voice was tight, and I could feel the hurt radiating off her. Lilith wrapped her arms around her friend, and Calla slouched down for a second, taking in the comfort Lilith was offering.

  “I’m all done.” Lilith gently let go of Calla and stepped back.

  “Good, are you ready for your first scene?” Calla asked as she rubbed her hands together like a villain from vaudeville.

  Lilith thought about it, she knew she was going to have sex tonight with gorgeous Master Gaige who had taken care of her all day. He had spanked her yesterday, but then he had praised her and made her feel as if she were the only woman in world. Unlike a regular date with a man, she knew what was going to happen tonight, and she had the power to stop everything with one word without argument or judgement.

  “Yes, I want this to happen.” Lilith’s voice was firm, and she realised she did want this. After today, she had become even closer to Gaige, and she wanted to share more of herself with him, she wanted to submit to him.